Larry Hood oral history transcript

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INTERVIEW WITH LARRY HOOD
BY DOROTHE NORTON JULY 19, 2002
MS. NORTON: Can you please tell me your birthplace and date?
MR. HOOD: I was born right here in Bushnell, Illinois where this recording is being made. I was born on April 25, 1938 on a little farm just about a mile and a half straight east of Bushnell.
MS. NORTON: And what were your parent’s names?
MR. HOOD: My Dad’s name…[tape skips] …so that type of work that I did was certainly later in my career. But there was nothing in direct relationship.
MS. NORTON: When, where and how did you meet your wife?
MR. HOOD: Well, Peg grew up here in Bushnell, same as I did. She worked in a little place here in Bushnell where we all hung out in the evenings. So I just here was a good-looking gal, that I wanted a date and with we started dating. We aren’t quite childhood sweethearts, but we’ve known each other a long time!
MS. NORTON: When and where did you marry? MR. HOOD: We got married here in Bushnell on June 4, 1960.
MS. NORTON: Do you have any children?
MR. HOOD: We have one daughter, Elizabeth Anne.
MS. NORTON: What does she do now?
MR. HOOD: She is the Manager of the Coffee Shop in a Barnes and Noble store in the Chicago area.
MS. NORTON: Why did you want to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service?
MR. HOOD: I think I sort of always did. I knew from the very beginning, as soon as I was interested in birds. I have been interested in birds since I was six years old, or earlier. I knew I wanted to so something in wildlife. When I was six years old, I probably didn’t know what the Fish and Wildlife Service was but I knew I wanted to do some kind of outdoor work of some kind. As I grew up and got older, why, I knew it was the Fish and Wildlife Service. I didn’t know whether I’d ever have the chance to do it or not. But that was sort of, you know, my goal was to go to work for FWS.
MS. NORTON: What was your first professional position, state, federal or other? Not with the Service. MR. HOOD: Well, as I say, my first position was with Plant Quarantine for that brief period before I went into the Army. When I came out of the Army my plans had been of course to work for Plant Quarantine because when I was in the Army at Walter Reed, our daughter came along and so I kind of needed a job. I had a wife and daughter to support. But the fellow that headed up the Lab at Walter Reed was talking to me one day, just before I got out of the Army. I was telling him my plans. This fellow was a civilian Ph.D. He was an extremely outspoken individual and he said, “My God, that doesn’t sound like much of a job!” He said, “I know about a research project at Chincoteague, Virginia that the University of Maryland is doing on Encephalitis.” And he said, “I could get you an interview with that.” Well going to Chincoteague, Virginia beat going to Baltimore, Maryland so I went down and interviewed for this job with the University of Maryland as a Research Biologist. I go that job and worked two years for the University of Maryland on Encephalitis research in Chincoteague, VA. By that time the Viet Nam was starting to eat up a lot of the Army’s money. The money came from the United States Army and it was winding down. A friend of mine that I had known at Southern was working on an Encephalitis project for the University of Illinois in Kentucky. He called me. He knew his days were numbered because he was going to get drafted. I got his job when he got drafted and I spent two years with the University of Illinois working in Kentucky still on Encephalitis research. Then in 1968 I actually came on with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
MS. NORTON: What attracted you to the Service?
MR. HOOD: Well, I always had an interest in it. And after I got out of the Army and went to Chincoteague; of course the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is there. I met Dave Hall. I had know Larry Calvert at Southern. These met these people and talked with them. I trapped wildlife on the Refuge to take blood samples for Encephalitis research. So I had knowledge of and certainly interest in the Service. But I just didn’t do anything with it, you might say, until 1968.
MS. NORTON: What duty stations did you have? And what kinds of positions?
MR. HOOD: My first job was at a Bird Banding Station. I was hired in 1968. Earl Bassinger was the Chief of the Bird Banding Office out there. I had met Earl in 1967. I had been editor of the Inland Bird Banding News, which was a little newsletter that was published among bird banders. I had met Earl at a bird-banding meeting and had talking to him. That was in the fall of 1967. In the following year he called me and said that the Biologist who was at the Bird Banding Laboratory was going to be leaving. He wondered if I was interested in a job at the Lab as a Biologist. Well, needless to say, I was. Working there seemed like just about the greatest job you could get. The project that I was on with Illinois, there was some political infighting up at the University; the professor that headed up that project was getting ready to go to Texas. I wasn’t really interested in going to Texas, and with this offer to go with the Service; of course I jumped at it. I put in my papers and everything and was hired in February of 1968 at the Bird Banding Laboratory. That was the start of my career. I stayed with the Service until 1994 when I retired.
MS. NORTON: Did you go into different types of positions?
MR. HOOD: From 1968 to 1972, I was a Biologist out at the Bird Banding Laboratory. Then in 1972 I transferred into Law Enforcement, but still as a Biologist because in 1972 Law Enforcement was still Management/Enforcement. And I had been thinking about moving on. There was not really any advancement at the Bird Banding Laboratory. By this time there were two Biologists; myself and another Biologist. The grade level and everything was pretty much fixed there. Again, Earl Bassinger called me. He had left the Laboratory and was working in downtown Washington. Of course the Bird Banding Laboratory is at Patuxent, Maryland. He said that Law Enforcement was interested in someone to come in to downtown Washington. The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act were in the final process of being passed and everything. They needed a Biologist down in the office of Management Enforcement to help write regulations and civil penalties and a great many different jobs down there. It was a grade increase and everything, so I went down and interviewed for that job. Marshall Stennent was the fellow that I interviewed with. Chuck Lawrence was the Chief of Law Enforcement. I met those fellows and was hired as a Biologist down there. So I started working, still as a Biologist and it was still Management Enforcement. Of course in 1973, there was a reorganization, as the Service is want to do at times, and suddenly all the Biologists were gone; all of the waterfowl biologists, and everything. I moved into the office of Waterfowl Management. I was not a Waterfowl Biologist. My background was not in waterfowl, so I couldn’t very well go with them. I had never been trained to carry a badge and a gun, but I was left with the Agents. For a period of time, I was the only Biologist with the Division of Law Enforcement. Toward the end of 1973, I went through the Federal Law Enforcement Training School and became an Agent then. I was in the Washington office from 1972 to 1976. In 1976, I transferred to Anchorage, Alaska as the Deputy up there under Ray Trembly. I was up there from 1976 to 1986. Then I transferred to Minneapolis as the Special Agent in Charge there following Bob Hodges in that office. I was there then until April of 1994 when I retired. That was the various positions that I held with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
MS. NORTON: What were the pay and benefits like when you first started? What did you think of that?
MR. HOOD: I can hardly remember. At the Bird Banding Laboratory, I think I started as a GS-7 Biologist. I think I then became a GS-9 out there. What the salary was, I can’t remember anymore. I know when I started with Plant Quarantine I thought they paid the greatest salary in the world because I was hired at a GS-7 and that would have been in 1962. They paid, I think, $5250.00 a year, which I thought was a fortune, because at that time as a grad student I was making around $160.00 a month. I can’t remember what the pay scale was when I went with the Service. I am sure there was some increase there, but it was not what the salaries are today, that’s for certain. MS. NORTON: How about the benefits?
MR. HOOD: Again, I can’t remember. Of course the thing was the federal health insurance program that you had and the federal life insurance you could get was very reasonable. By the time I went to work for the Service our daughter was about three years old. That phase of the benefits, because I had had none of those with the University of Illinois or the University of Maryland, was very, very good.
MS. NORTON: How about promotion opportunities?
MR. HOOD: As a Biologist at the Bird Banding Laboratory, because I only had a Bachelor’s degree, my promotion potential would not have been good. But once I went into Law Enforcement, it must have been pretty good; I started out as an Agent and ended up as a SAC [Special Agent in Charge], so it must have been pretty good.
MS. NORTON: That’s very good! Did you socialize with the people that you worked with?
MR. HOOD: There was a lot of socialization at Patuxent. That was a very close-knit group out there among the biologists at the bird station. In the Washington office there was not that much because part of us lived in Maryland, some lived in Virginia. There were people scattered all around. But in Alaska, there was a great deal of socialization. Again, that was a very close-knit group. In Minneapolis again, it was not as close-knit a group as there had been in Alaska because people were scattered around in the Twin Cities. It was not quite like it was [in smaller communities]. At Patuxent and again in Alaska it was always a very close-knit group. I think throughout the Service that’s one of the great things about the Fish and Wildlife Service, particularly when I first started the Service was quite small. The total number of employees was probably three or four thousand throughout the United States. Everybody knew everybody after you had been around a while. It was sort of like a big, extended family.
MS. NORTON: How did your career affect your family?
MR. HOOD: Well, I guess I was very lucky to have a wife that would put up with all of the travel and everything I did. When I started out at the Banding Lab of course it was just sort of a job when you got up in the morning and went to work and came home every evening. We’d go to meetings occasionally, but they were usually over weekends, and I wasn’t gone much. Of course in Washington when I first went downtown, there was some travel but not a great deal. But in Alaska, luckily my wife is the very resilient type and was able to stand it. I was gone for long periods of time. There were times when we’d be gone for as long as three weeks at a time on enforcement patrols and things like that. As time went along there were more and more meetings to attend; training and everything so I was gone a great deal. Some marriages didn’t survive that, but Peg and I didn’t have any great problem with it.
MS. NORTON: Why did you leave the Service? MR. HOOD: I retired! I was lucky that in Law Enforcement there is mandatory retirement at age 57. So I would have had to retire in 1995, but in 1994 there was a buy-out program going on with the Service and so I took the buy-out actually retired at age 56. I left a year early.
MS. NORTON: What kind of training did you receive for your jobs?
MR. HOOD: In my Law Enforcement work, of course to become an Agent I went through the Federal Law Enforcement Training School. When I went through it, it was in Washington, D.C. I went through in 1973, I believe it was, or maybe early 1974. Then, a little bit later then, the whole Federal Law Enforcement Training Center would move to Glencoe, Georgia. We used to go down there for our yearly update training. I went through the basic Federal Agent School that was taught in Washington, D.C.
MS. NORTON: What hours did you have to work?
MR. HOOD: At the Banding Lab the hours were say eight to five. And in Washington, D.C. they were somewhat longer. There were some extra hours and things, but still it was a sort of a Monday through Friday, eight to five type job. Once you went to the field, of course, then it was whatever the job demanded. There were lots of days from 3:00am to 10 or 11:00pm. And weekends during hunting season were almost unheard of particularly in Alaska, because when I went up there, there were only seven Agents in all of Alaska. From duck season which usually opened on September 1st and usually freeze up would hit Anchorage sometime from the 10th to the 20th of October; every year for the ten years that I was up there, you worked every day during that period. You’d go out on to the duck flats in the areas around Anchorage where we worked. You’d get out there on the 31st of August and you worked every day until things froze up. Then it would quiet down. It was long hours with Law Enforcement. It was somewhat similar in the Twin Cities. You worked most weekends during the hunting season; the waterfowl and dove seasons too. The seasons ran a lot longer because it didn’t freeze up and you could always go south to Missouri or southern Illinois to work.
MS. NORTON: What tools and instruments did you have to use in your job?
MR. HOOD: Why, your pistol of course! [Laughing] It was not that case in research. With Agents in Alaska, we did a lot of flying. I was not a pilot, but did a lot of flying with the Agents that were. There were always the outboard motors, radios, your vehicles, and we all carried firearms. That was one of the big training things in Glencoe and later out in Arizona when we went for training out there. Of course proficiency with your sidearm and shotgun training and all of that type of stuff was necessary.
MS. NORTON: Did you witness any new Service inventions or innovations?
MR. HOOD: With Law Enforcement there was a lot of change; the case reporting system came in and of course towards the end, as with any phase of the Service, the computer had come in and was becoming quite a tool. Many of the Agents were starting to use it a great deal. Our case reports were put on that. The computer was one of the biggest things. There was better radio equipment; mobile phones came in, and were used by Agents to contact each other or to call in for a search warrant and things like that. Those were all things that were innovations, or advancements during the period I was with Law Enforcement in the Service.
MS. NORTON: Did you work with animals?
MR. HOOD: In Alaska, I did a great deal of work with animals. The way we were situated up there; particularly with ducks, geese, eagles and things like that. We’d get calls like there was a goose with a bunch of goslings out on a busy highway, or there was an injured eagle and things like that. So we were kind of the folks who would go out and pick those kinds of things us. We did a lot of work in that way because we had a program set up with a Veterinarian there in Anchorage who would treat injured wildlife. We picked up lots of injured wildlife and took them to the Veterinarian and release them later. It was a good deal of direct work with wildlife in Alaska. In Minneapolis, being in a bigger city and all, we didn’t do that much. I guess the front office kind of frowned on the SAC going out and picking up ducklings and things. There was a little more of a casual attitude in Anchorage than the Twin Cities?
MS. NORTON: What kind of support did you receive locally, regionally, federally?
MR. HOOD: We worked closely with State Game Wardens. There would be no way that the ‘feds’ could do it all. I don’t think we ever had many more than 200 federal agents while I was working with Law Enforcement. You depended a great deal on State Law Enforcement; the State Agents were very important. You worked closely with them. If you needed help on some sort of specialized things, you could call on other federal law enforcement agencies. We worked with the Park Service, with BLM; occasionally if you were doing some type of specialized work you might be in touch with the FBI. Of course within the Service, we worked closely with the Refuge branches.
MS. NORTON: How do you think the Service was perceived by the people outside of the Agency?
MR. HOOD: Not well, in Alaska. In Alaska there’s a whole lot of people that are not conservationists so the Service has some real problems in Alaska; as they do in the lower forty-eight. I think if the Service has one great flaw, it’s perhaps that they have not done everything they should have on getting a better hearing before the public perhaps. There was certainly animosity towards the Service in Alaska. In the lower Forty-eight, when I was in Region 3 in northern Minnesota, with the wolf situation; a lot of folks up there disliked the Fish and Wildlife Service. In western Minnesota, they disliked it over wetlands management areas. There was a great deal of friction out there. As an Agent, you know, nobody wanted to see the Game Warden come around, particularly if you wrote them a ticket, you were not usually real happy. But I have noticed since I retired here in west, central Illinois there’s a National Wildlife Refuge; Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge; which is only about thirty miles from here. And there is Mark Twain over on the Mississippi, which is about the same distance to the west. I found that when I came back to Bushnell and talked to people and said that I had retired as a Game Warden, everybody assumed that I had been a Game Warden with the State of Illinois. Virtually no one knew about federal Wardens, special agents. The Fish and Wildlife Service is almost unknown here in west central Illinois. The Service, I don’t think has done at all well, for as old as the Service is in getting out the message of how important we are. Because what the Fish and Wildlife Service has done is a special nitch. The Park Service is a big land steward. BLM and the Forest Service and all of them are. But the Service is sort of special with the Refuges and all of the work we’ve done with wildlife; both protecting endangered species and with hunting and all of this. I don’t think that the Service is at all well known. I think through most of the United States, particularly in urban areas, if you’d go around and ask people what the Fish and Wildlife Service was; “what does FWS stand for?” I don’t think you’d find one person in a hundred who would know what it is. I think there has been, and is a problem there.
MS. NORTON: I know that so many times they said that I worked for the DNR. You probably faced the same thing.
MR. HOOD: And even after you told them who you were, they’d still want to know what the fishing regulations were or where they could go hunt moose, or how many black bears they could take that year. And you have to say, “I don’t know, that’s State and I’m Federal”. Most people would go away shaking their head and wondering, “Who was this person.”
MS. NORTON: In Law Enforcement I was involved in both of the big Walrus investigations in Alaska. The first one was when I was in Alaska. The second one, the big one, I went back in 1992. I was involved rather heavily in the big falconry investigations that were conducted. The first big feather raids down in Oklahoma, I went on those. I was involved in a number of those big investigations that were major undercover investigations that when the takedowns were done a number of agents were needed for that.
MS. NORTON: What were the major issues that you had to deal with, and how were they resolved?
MR. HOOD: Well, in Alaska the big things were the Native Claims Settlement Act and Subsistence hunting. It’s still going on. It sort of started just shortly before I got to Alaska in 1976. It’s still going on hot and heavy up there. Then, of course you are always involved with waterfowl regulations and bag limits and those types of things. Of course there was also Endangered Species.
MS. NORTON: What was your most pressing issue, and how has that changed?
MR. HOOD: It was different in different places. In Alaska, the most pressing issue up there was marine mammals and subsistence hunting. Actually, the amount of waterfowl hunting going on in Alaska was rather small. That was a minor thing. But the subsistence, and Native Claims Settlement Act was a big thing up there. When in came to Region 3, I don’t want to say ‘regular’ but there you did a lot of waterfowl enforcement. That was major. We still did of course Endangered Species because we had the Port of Chicago, were wildlife could be imported. The Lacy Act with the transport of illegally taken game across borders and things like that. There was a difference, and a good deal of difference between Alaska and Region 3.
MS. NORTON: What was the major impediment to your job or your career?
MR. HOOD: Well, I suppose most Agents would say that if we had more money we could have done a better job. But actually, we usually were in pretty good shape money wise. You had to watch your budget but money was normally not an impediment; not while I was in Alaska or for the most part, while I was in Region 3. We often thought that the Regional Director didn’t quite see eye to eye with us. You always had, and I have learned from talking to people since I retired, the political situation has gotten worse. There is a lot more political pressure being brought on the Service. When I first started politicians were; unless you arrested one, or wrote on a ticket, you never met one. There has been a lot of that because the Service has taken on a lot more tasks. It has become a much bigger impediment to development, if you will. Of course, the developers have tried to bring in their politician friends to put the pressure on the Service. There’s been a good deal of that, and sometimes that is or was an impediment. Usually, if you really sit down and figure it out, you could usually get around most of the impediments that were placed in front of you.
MS. NORTON: Who were your supervisors?
MR. HOOD: At the Bird Banding Laboratory, I started with Earl Bassinger. George Junkel was the chief there when I left. When I went with Law Enforcement, Chuck Lawrence was the Chief of Law Enforcement, and the Clark Baven, when I transferred to Alaska. In Alaska Ray Trembly was the SAC when I got there and Jim Hope came when Ray retired. The Regional Directors; I don’t know if I can remember the Regional Directors when I was up there. Gordy Watson, the “hippie RD”. Gordy wore a pig tail and tennis shoes when I knew him in Alaska. He was the first one. Then there was “the dancing bear”, Keith Schriner replaced Gordy. Bob Putx came in. Then, my old friend Bob; strange how I have forgotten his name, I’ll think of it in a minute. Bob was the last RD in Alaska. When I came to Region 3, I was the SAC and Jim Gripman was the RD. No, no, he was not. Harvey Nelson was there for a period of time and then retired. Jim replaced him. When Jim retired, Sam Marler was the RD when I retired.
MS. NORTON: Who were some of the people that you knew outside of the Service? Do you think they’d be able to work for the Service today?
MR. HOOD: I don’t quite know what you mean. People that I knew outside the Service? In looking at the State Wardens and those people that you worked with many of those could, and many of them were interested in becoming Federal Wardens. MS. NORTON: What Presidents, Secretaries of the Interior, or Directors of Fish and Wildlife did you serve under?
MR. HOOD: Lord, I can’t remember! Secretaries of the Interior, oh who was the terrible one that we had under Reagan? Watt, we all remember evil Jim Watt. But that’s the only one I remember. And you remember him in the negative sense. Directors; there was Greenwalt. He was Director of FWS for a period of time. I can’t even remember who was Director when I first started. That was clear back in 1968. There was Greenwalt, and the fellow from Colorado. Some of them you remember by reputation, but you can’t remember their names. And as you get older….
MS. NORTON: Senior moments.
MR. HOOD: Senior moments, that are right! Someone once told me when I first started working with FWS that most Directors of the Service, and in those days the folks that were in the top echelon in the Interior Building that when they retired, within a week no one can call their name. I guess that’s true, I can’t.
MS. NORTON: How do you feel the changes in administrations affected the work that you did?
MR. HOOD: There were some administrations that were slightly greener than others, and provided Interior with a little more money. I think that’s one of the real problems with the Service today. Because the current administration is not very green, that’s for sure. That always created problems because they could short your money very seriously. If you had a bad Secretary of the Interior who was pushing the party line, if the party line was pro-development it created real problems. That was the thing, when I first started it was just almost unheard of; any type of interference by politicians. Ralph Vondane, way back, early on, once made a Senator made and got threatened with being transferred. There was just very little of that going on. Today, I think politicians are meddling a lot more. We had some problems in Alaska because the three politicians from Alaska are not environmentalists in any way, shape of form. They meddled a great deal, and created problems. Not directly so much with Law Enforcement but they certainly made life miserable for the RD if he wasn’t to the pro-development line that they wanted up there.
MS. NORTON: What was the high point of your career?
MR. HOOD: The day I retired! No, there was a lot of things that I enjoyed. I am very proud of my career with the Service. I am very happy with it. The ten years in Alaska were probably the most fun I’ve ever had. Alaska was a very special place. I got to see most of the State. We did lots of flying and small boat work, and big boat work. I worked all over the State and had a lot of exciting things to do up there, both in Law Enforcement and other things we did. It was a great bunch of people. And of course, that was the thing that always made work with the Service a very good experience. It was the people. The work was interesting, but you worked with a great bunch of people; whether it was agents, or refuge people or the biologists. I always felt that that was the absolute strength of the FWS, it’s people. It had top-notch people. That meant people who didn’t worry about starting time or quitting time. Starting time was when we got a project underway. And quitting time was when you were done. I think they were an amazing group and I was always very proud to be associated with the people in the Service.
MS. NORTON: How about a low point? Did you have a low point?
MR. HOOD: Yeah, there were low points. There was always budget battles and things like that. We had some very hard times in Alaska over political interference. Down at the Kenai Refuge when an Agent found Senator Murkowski in a closed area and challenged him on it. There was a great deal of controversy there. That was a very low point because I was Acting Special Agent in Charge at that time. I didn’t get the support we deserved from the Regional Director. That was probably the lowest point of my career. Alaska must have been somewhat trying; when I came out of Alaska and had my first physical after I left, I had high blood pressure. It went down after I got out of Alaska. Maybe that had something to do with it. But the thing about your career with the Service; it was just like life, you remember the happy times and forget the tough ones. I survived retirement. I’m still here, so it must not have been too bad.
MS. NORTON: What was your most humorous experience?
MR. HOOD: Oh boy, there was more of those than hard ones. I always felt that if I had a criticism of the Service, I thought that at times there were people in the Service, and particularly as they went up the line that sometimes took themselves too seriously. And I thought that you ought to have a little more fun. Some people probably thought that I had too much fun. I had a great deal of difficulty taking things real seriously, particularly when it came to bureaucratic things. I can think of one particular one right now, but we always had lot so fun. It was always great to work with agents, because agents were folks that could enjoy themselves no matter where they were or whatever the conditions. It probably would not be political to talk about Christmas parties that I have known, and Christmas parties that I couldn’t remember leaving and things like that!
MS. NORTON: Where do you see the Service heading in the next decade?
MR. HOOD: I have to be real honest. I have sort of lost touch to some extent. With the Service, and many of the agents that I knew and kept in touch with after I retired; they’ve retired too. So I have sort of lost my contacts with the Service. And here in west central Illinois, there’s only a couple of Refuges that I don’t visit as often as I’d like to, I’ve kind of lost touch with the Service. It’s difficult for me to say. From what I read in the conservation magazines that I get; it doesn’t look real great for the Service. I think that because it’s small and certainly with the atmosphere that they are operating under at the present time in 2002, I think the administration now is totaling anti-environmental. They only have interest in big business and what can be made off of the land. I think it’s hard times for the Service. It could get a lot harder. I tend to be somewhat pessimistic and right at the present time both with the economy and the government; I am extremely pessimistic. I would have to say that the Service has a bright future right now. But that could turn around. It’s tough out there today. And the pressure that is on the environment is extreme to say the least. I just got back from Montana. I was out at Red Rocks Lake and while the Red Rock National Wildlife Refuge looks just like it did when I was there 44 years ago, on the country around it houses are growing up like mushrooms, particularly on the Idaho side of the pass there. It’s that way in a lot of places. The pressure is great. It’s too bad because what the Service has to sell is the greatest product in the world. It’s wildlife, and an outdoor experience. I’m not sure that the Service is getting it sold the way it should be.
MS. NORTON: Whom else do you think we should interview?
MR. HOOD: I think that this is a very good project. I think that is one area that the Service has slighted is their retirees, because there is a great wealth of knowledge. The organizational memory is in the retirees. I think that they should all be interviewed; any retiree. I think that they should be interviewed shortly after they retire. In my case it’s been eight years and when you ask about names and things you start to forget them. That’s just something you deal with. And I think that it would be great to interview people just shortly before they retire or just shortly after to get their input. I think that there should be a real effort made; you asked about a humorous experience and everything, it would be great to get people to have more time to tell them in advance that they will be interviewed. It would give them a chance to think of some of the special or humorous things that they did. Someday we’ll all be real old timers and once we’re gone, that’s lost forever. I look back on people that I knew here locally; old farmers and people like that and when they’re gone… Most of them didn’t write anything down. Within the Service of course, there is a written record; case reports and projects that were done. Refuges probably have the best because they have the files in their refuge offices. But it’s still not like doing this. I think this is a great idea. I can’t think of any specific names of people, but any of the people in Refuges, or Law Enforcement. I think an effort should be made to interview Maintenance people, and the Secretaries because they have a totally different perspective on it. But it’s one that is absolutely just as important as a Regional Director. After all, a Secretary out on some Refuge somewhere, if she spent twenty years there, her view of that place, she has a twenty-year memory of that place. It’s just as important, and maybe in some ways, much more interesting than what a Regional Director who was up on top and perhaps couldn’t see what was happening down there on the ground where it was going on.
MS. NORTON: Do you have any photos or documents or anything that you’d want to donate or share to the Archives?
MR. HOOD: Well, all of those files that I took out of there when I left, I don’t want to share those! Oh, I’m only joking! I’ve got a lot of photographs that were taken. They are of Agents and stuff. I could certainly go through and provide negatives of those. I have a lot of photos that Bill Zimmerman took. You know him quiet well don’t you? There are pictures that I took of cases and things like that. We have all of that stuff stacked up. I can show you that in the morning before you leave. A lot of them were pictures that were given to me at my retirement. But there’s a lot of that stuff that I have from Alaska. Along that line; since this is going in to Washington, and somebody will listen to it some day I guess; Jim Hough, who was a SAC in Alaska. I worked with Jim a long time up there. He is definitely someone who should be interviewed. He is quite a photographer. He has a lot of photographs. If nobody has talked to him, he is somebody that should be put on the list. Jim’s memory goes way back. He started his career in Alaska. He left for many years and came back. It was kind of interesting. He started as an Agent in Alaska, left and came back as a Special Agent in Charge. He was quite a photographer. He has lots of stuff. When I left Alaska; I don’t know if they are still up there or not, but there were huge archives, if you will, of slides in the Law Enforcement office. Now, whether or not they are still there, I don’t know. Another person who should be interviewed is Sonny Lecouer who was the Secretary up there when I was there. She has since retired. Maybe someone as gone up there and got them, but those photographs went back into the 1950s. There were people, airplanes, banding, and all of the stuff up there. I went through those slides just to look at them, out of interest sometimes. There again, another person who should be interviewed is Ray Trembly, whose knowledge of the FWS in Alaska goes back to I think 1949 when Ray started. He remembers Alaska when Alaska was real. He’d be someone that should be passed on. Ray has written a couple of books about FWS flying in Alaska. I am sure the Service is making an effort, but those old timers, whether they were Refuge people or Fisheries, Law Enforcement people, or whoever in Alaska, they have a unique story to tell up there.
MS. NORTON: I think that as these tapes are typed up, someone will be reading them before they put them into the Archives. So I think that if there’s anything specific, that they really want, they would probably write to you, or let me know and I would contact you. But that concludes our interview, Larry, and I want to thank you very much. It was good to see you and your wife again, and your beautiful home here. Hopefully, we’ll see you at next year’s meeting, if not before!
MR. HOOD: If not before! I enjoyed it very much!

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INTERVIEW WITH LARRY HOOD
BY DOROTHE NORTON JULY 19, 2002
MS. NORTON: Can you please tell me your birthplace and date?
MR. HOOD: I was born right here in Bushnell, Illinois where this recording is being made. I was born on April 25, 1938 on a little farm just about a mile and a half straight east of Bushnell.
MS. NORTON: And what were your parent’s names?
MR. HOOD: My Dad’s name…[tape skips] …so that type of work that I did was certainly later in my career. But there was nothing in direct relationship.
MS. NORTON: When, where and how did you meet your wife?
MR. HOOD: Well, Peg grew up here in Bushnell, same as I did. She worked in a little place here in Bushnell where we all hung out in the evenings. So I just here was a good-looking gal, that I wanted a date and with we started dating. We aren’t quite childhood sweethearts, but we’ve known each other a long time!
MS. NORTON: When and where did you marry? MR. HOOD: We got married here in Bushnell on June 4, 1960.
MS. NORTON: Do you have any children?
MR. HOOD: We have one daughter, Elizabeth Anne.
MS. NORTON: What does she do now?
MR. HOOD: She is the Manager of the Coffee Shop in a Barnes and Noble store in the Chicago area.
MS. NORTON: Why did you want to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service?
MR. HOOD: I think I sort of always did. I knew from the very beginning, as soon as I was interested in birds. I have been interested in birds since I was six years old, or earlier. I knew I wanted to so something in wildlife. When I was six years old, I probably didn’t know what the Fish and Wildlife Service was but I knew I wanted to do some kind of outdoor work of some kind. As I grew up and got older, why, I knew it was the Fish and Wildlife Service. I didn’t know whether I’d ever have the chance to do it or not. But that was sort of, you know, my goal was to go to work for FWS.
MS. NORTON: What was your first professional position, state, federal or other? Not with the Service. MR. HOOD: Well, as I say, my first position was with Plant Quarantine for that brief period before I went into the Army. When I came out of the Army my plans had been of course to work for Plant Quarantine because when I was in the Army at Walter Reed, our daughter came along and so I kind of needed a job. I had a wife and daughter to support. But the fellow that headed up the Lab at Walter Reed was talking to me one day, just before I got out of the Army. I was telling him my plans. This fellow was a civilian Ph.D. He was an extremely outspoken individual and he said, “My God, that doesn’t sound like much of a job!” He said, “I know about a research project at Chincoteague, Virginia that the University of Maryland is doing on Encephalitis.” And he said, “I could get you an interview with that.” Well going to Chincoteague, Virginia beat going to Baltimore, Maryland so I went down and interviewed for this job with the University of Maryland as a Research Biologist. I go that job and worked two years for the University of Maryland on Encephalitis research in Chincoteague, VA. By that time the Viet Nam was starting to eat up a lot of the Army’s money. The money came from the United States Army and it was winding down. A friend of mine that I had known at Southern was working on an Encephalitis project for the University of Illinois in Kentucky. He called me. He knew his days were numbered because he was going to get drafted. I got his job when he got drafted and I spent two years with the University of Illinois working in Kentucky still on Encephalitis research. Then in 1968 I actually came on with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
MS. NORTON: What attracted you to the Service?
MR. HOOD: Well, I always had an interest in it. And after I got out of the Army and went to Chincoteague; of course the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is there. I met Dave Hall. I had know Larry Calvert at Southern. These met these people and talked with them. I trapped wildlife on the Refuge to take blood samples for Encephalitis research. So I had knowledge of and certainly interest in the Service. But I just didn’t do anything with it, you might say, until 1968.
MS. NORTON: What duty stations did you have? And what kinds of positions?
MR. HOOD: My first job was at a Bird Banding Station. I was hired in 1968. Earl Bassinger was the Chief of the Bird Banding Office out there. I had met Earl in 1967. I had been editor of the Inland Bird Banding News, which was a little newsletter that was published among bird banders. I had met Earl at a bird-banding meeting and had talking to him. That was in the fall of 1967. In the following year he called me and said that the Biologist who was at the Bird Banding Laboratory was going to be leaving. He wondered if I was interested in a job at the Lab as a Biologist. Well, needless to say, I was. Working there seemed like just about the greatest job you could get. The project that I was on with Illinois, there was some political infighting up at the University; the professor that headed up that project was getting ready to go to Texas. I wasn’t really interested in going to Texas, and with this offer to go with the Service; of course I jumped at it. I put in my papers and everything and was hired in February of 1968 at the Bird Banding Laboratory. That was the start of my career. I stayed with the Service until 1994 when I retired.
MS. NORTON: Did you go into different types of positions?
MR. HOOD: From 1968 to 1972, I was a Biologist out at the Bird Banding Laboratory. Then in 1972 I transferred into Law Enforcement, but still as a Biologist because in 1972 Law Enforcement was still Management/Enforcement. And I had been thinking about moving on. There was not really any advancement at the Bird Banding Laboratory. By this time there were two Biologists; myself and another Biologist. The grade level and everything was pretty much fixed there. Again, Earl Bassinger called me. He had left the Laboratory and was working in downtown Washington. Of course the Bird Banding Laboratory is at Patuxent, Maryland. He said that Law Enforcement was interested in someone to come in to downtown Washington. The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act were in the final process of being passed and everything. They needed a Biologist down in the office of Management Enforcement to help write regulations and civil penalties and a great many different jobs down there. It was a grade increase and everything, so I went down and interviewed for that job. Marshall Stennent was the fellow that I interviewed with. Chuck Lawrence was the Chief of Law Enforcement. I met those fellows and was hired as a Biologist down there. So I started working, still as a Biologist and it was still Management Enforcement. Of course in 1973, there was a reorganization, as the Service is want to do at times, and suddenly all the Biologists were gone; all of the waterfowl biologists, and everything. I moved into the office of Waterfowl Management. I was not a Waterfowl Biologist. My background was not in waterfowl, so I couldn’t very well go with them. I had never been trained to carry a badge and a gun, but I was left with the Agents. For a period of time, I was the only Biologist with the Division of Law Enforcement. Toward the end of 1973, I went through the Federal Law Enforcement Training School and became an Agent then. I was in the Washington office from 1972 to 1976. In 1976, I transferred to Anchorage, Alaska as the Deputy up there under Ray Trembly. I was up there from 1976 to 1986. Then I transferred to Minneapolis as the Special Agent in Charge there following Bob Hodges in that office. I was there then until April of 1994 when I retired. That was the various positions that I held with the Fish and Wildlife Service.
MS. NORTON: What were the pay and benefits like when you first started? What did you think of that?
MR. HOOD: I can hardly remember. At the Bird Banding Laboratory, I think I started as a GS-7 Biologist. I think I then became a GS-9 out there. What the salary was, I can’t remember anymore. I know when I started with Plant Quarantine I thought they paid the greatest salary in the world because I was hired at a GS-7 and that would have been in 1962. They paid, I think, $5250.00 a year, which I thought was a fortune, because at that time as a grad student I was making around $160.00 a month. I can’t remember what the pay scale was when I went with the Service. I am sure there was some increase there, but it was not what the salaries are today, that’s for certain. MS. NORTON: How about the benefits?
MR. HOOD: Again, I can’t remember. Of course the thing was the federal health insurance program that you had and the federal life insurance you could get was very reasonable. By the time I went to work for the Service our daughter was about three years old. That phase of the benefits, because I had had none of those with the University of Illinois or the University of Maryland, was very, very good.
MS. NORTON: How about promotion opportunities?
MR. HOOD: As a Biologist at the Bird Banding Laboratory, because I only had a Bachelor’s degree, my promotion potential would not have been good. But once I went into Law Enforcement, it must have been pretty good; I started out as an Agent and ended up as a SAC [Special Agent in Charge], so it must have been pretty good.
MS. NORTON: That’s very good! Did you socialize with the people that you worked with?
MR. HOOD: There was a lot of socialization at Patuxent. That was a very close-knit group out there among the biologists at the bird station. In the Washington office there was not that much because part of us lived in Maryland, some lived in Virginia. There were people scattered all around. But in Alaska, there was a great deal of socialization. Again, that was a very close-knit group. In Minneapolis again, it was not as close-knit a group as there had been in Alaska because people were scattered around in the Twin Cities. It was not quite like it was [in smaller communities]. At Patuxent and again in Alaska it was always a very close-knit group. I think throughout the Service that’s one of the great things about the Fish and Wildlife Service, particularly when I first started the Service was quite small. The total number of employees was probably three or four thousand throughout the United States. Everybody knew everybody after you had been around a while. It was sort of like a big, extended family.
MS. NORTON: How did your career affect your family?
MR. HOOD: Well, I guess I was very lucky to have a wife that would put up with all of the travel and everything I did. When I started out at the Banding Lab of course it was just sort of a job when you got up in the morning and went to work and came home every evening. We’d go to meetings occasionally, but they were usually over weekends, and I wasn’t gone much. Of course in Washington when I first went downtown, there was some travel but not a great deal. But in Alaska, luckily my wife is the very resilient type and was able to stand it. I was gone for long periods of time. There were times when we’d be gone for as long as three weeks at a time on enforcement patrols and things like that. As time went along there were more and more meetings to attend; training and everything so I was gone a great deal. Some marriages didn’t survive that, but Peg and I didn’t have any great problem with it.
MS. NORTON: Why did you leave the Service? MR. HOOD: I retired! I was lucky that in Law Enforcement there is mandatory retirement at age 57. So I would have had to retire in 1995, but in 1994 there was a buy-out program going on with the Service and so I took the buy-out actually retired at age 56. I left a year early.
MS. NORTON: What kind of training did you receive for your jobs?
MR. HOOD: In my Law Enforcement work, of course to become an Agent I went through the Federal Law Enforcement Training School. When I went through it, it was in Washington, D.C. I went through in 1973, I believe it was, or maybe early 1974. Then, a little bit later then, the whole Federal Law Enforcement Training Center would move to Glencoe, Georgia. We used to go down there for our yearly update training. I went through the basic Federal Agent School that was taught in Washington, D.C.
MS. NORTON: What hours did you have to work?
MR. HOOD: At the Banding Lab the hours were say eight to five. And in Washington, D.C. they were somewhat longer. There were some extra hours and things, but still it was a sort of a Monday through Friday, eight to five type job. Once you went to the field, of course, then it was whatever the job demanded. There were lots of days from 3:00am to 10 or 11:00pm. And weekends during hunting season were almost unheard of particularly in Alaska, because when I went up there, there were only seven Agents in all of Alaska. From duck season which usually opened on September 1st and usually freeze up would hit Anchorage sometime from the 10th to the 20th of October; every year for the ten years that I was up there, you worked every day during that period. You’d go out on to the duck flats in the areas around Anchorage where we worked. You’d get out there on the 31st of August and you worked every day until things froze up. Then it would quiet down. It was long hours with Law Enforcement. It was somewhat similar in the Twin Cities. You worked most weekends during the hunting season; the waterfowl and dove seasons too. The seasons ran a lot longer because it didn’t freeze up and you could always go south to Missouri or southern Illinois to work.
MS. NORTON: What tools and instruments did you have to use in your job?
MR. HOOD: Why, your pistol of course! [Laughing] It was not that case in research. With Agents in Alaska, we did a lot of flying. I was not a pilot, but did a lot of flying with the Agents that were. There were always the outboard motors, radios, your vehicles, and we all carried firearms. That was one of the big training things in Glencoe and later out in Arizona when we went for training out there. Of course proficiency with your sidearm and shotgun training and all of that type of stuff was necessary.
MS. NORTON: Did you witness any new Service inventions or innovations?
MR. HOOD: With Law Enforcement there was a lot of change; the case reporting system came in and of course towards the end, as with any phase of the Service, the computer had come in and was becoming quite a tool. Many of the Agents were starting to use it a great deal. Our case reports were put on that. The computer was one of the biggest things. There was better radio equipment; mobile phones came in, and were used by Agents to contact each other or to call in for a search warrant and things like that. Those were all things that were innovations, or advancements during the period I was with Law Enforcement in the Service.
MS. NORTON: Did you work with animals?
MR. HOOD: In Alaska, I did a great deal of work with animals. The way we were situated up there; particularly with ducks, geese, eagles and things like that. We’d get calls like there was a goose with a bunch of goslings out on a busy highway, or there was an injured eagle and things like that. So we were kind of the folks who would go out and pick those kinds of things us. We did a lot of work in that way because we had a program set up with a Veterinarian there in Anchorage who would treat injured wildlife. We picked up lots of injured wildlife and took them to the Veterinarian and release them later. It was a good deal of direct work with wildlife in Alaska. In Minneapolis, being in a bigger city and all, we didn’t do that much. I guess the front office kind of frowned on the SAC going out and picking up ducklings and things. There was a little more of a casual attitude in Anchorage than the Twin Cities?
MS. NORTON: What kind of support did you receive locally, regionally, federally?
MR. HOOD: We worked closely with State Game Wardens. There would be no way that the ‘feds’ could do it all. I don’t think we ever had many more than 200 federal agents while I was working with Law Enforcement. You depended a great deal on State Law Enforcement; the State Agents were very important. You worked closely with them. If you needed help on some sort of specialized things, you could call on other federal law enforcement agencies. We worked with the Park Service, with BLM; occasionally if you were doing some type of specialized work you might be in touch with the FBI. Of course within the Service, we worked closely with the Refuge branches.
MS. NORTON: How do you think the Service was perceived by the people outside of the Agency?
MR. HOOD: Not well, in Alaska. In Alaska there’s a whole lot of people that are not conservationists so the Service has some real problems in Alaska; as they do in the lower forty-eight. I think if the Service has one great flaw, it’s perhaps that they have not done everything they should have on getting a better hearing before the public perhaps. There was certainly animosity towards the Service in Alaska. In the lower Forty-eight, when I was in Region 3 in northern Minnesota, with the wolf situation; a lot of folks up there disliked the Fish and Wildlife Service. In western Minnesota, they disliked it over wetlands management areas. There was a great deal of friction out there. As an Agent, you know, nobody wanted to see the Game Warden come around, particularly if you wrote them a ticket, you were not usually real happy. But I have noticed since I retired here in west, central Illinois there’s a National Wildlife Refuge; Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge; which is only about thirty miles from here. And there is Mark Twain over on the Mississippi, which is about the same distance to the west. I found that when I came back to Bushnell and talked to people and said that I had retired as a Game Warden, everybody assumed that I had been a Game Warden with the State of Illinois. Virtually no one knew about federal Wardens, special agents. The Fish and Wildlife Service is almost unknown here in west central Illinois. The Service, I don’t think has done at all well, for as old as the Service is in getting out the message of how important we are. Because what the Fish and Wildlife Service has done is a special nitch. The Park Service is a big land steward. BLM and the Forest Service and all of them are. But the Service is sort of special with the Refuges and all of the work we’ve done with wildlife; both protecting endangered species and with hunting and all of this. I don’t think that the Service is at all well known. I think through most of the United States, particularly in urban areas, if you’d go around and ask people what the Fish and Wildlife Service was; “what does FWS stand for?” I don’t think you’d find one person in a hundred who would know what it is. I think there has been, and is a problem there.
MS. NORTON: I know that so many times they said that I worked for the DNR. You probably faced the same thing.
MR. HOOD: And even after you told them who you were, they’d still want to know what the fishing regulations were or where they could go hunt moose, or how many black bears they could take that year. And you have to say, “I don’t know, that’s State and I’m Federal”. Most people would go away shaking their head and wondering, “Who was this person.”
MS. NORTON: In Law Enforcement I was involved in both of the big Walrus investigations in Alaska. The first one was when I was in Alaska. The second one, the big one, I went back in 1992. I was involved rather heavily in the big falconry investigations that were conducted. The first big feather raids down in Oklahoma, I went on those. I was involved in a number of those big investigations that were major undercover investigations that when the takedowns were done a number of agents were needed for that.
MS. NORTON: What were the major issues that you had to deal with, and how were they resolved?
MR. HOOD: Well, in Alaska the big things were the Native Claims Settlement Act and Subsistence hunting. It’s still going on. It sort of started just shortly before I got to Alaska in 1976. It’s still going on hot and heavy up there. Then, of course you are always involved with waterfowl regulations and bag limits and those types of things. Of course there was also Endangered Species.
MS. NORTON: What was your most pressing issue, and how has that changed?
MR. HOOD: It was different in different places. In Alaska, the most pressing issue up there was marine mammals and subsistence hunting. Actually, the amount of waterfowl hunting going on in Alaska was rather small. That was a minor thing. But the subsistence, and Native Claims Settlement Act was a big thing up there. When in came to Region 3, I don’t want to say ‘regular’ but there you did a lot of waterfowl enforcement. That was major. We still did of course Endangered Species because we had the Port of Chicago, were wildlife could be imported. The Lacy Act with the transport of illegally taken game across borders and things like that. There was a difference, and a good deal of difference between Alaska and Region 3.
MS. NORTON: What was the major impediment to your job or your career?
MR. HOOD: Well, I suppose most Agents would say that if we had more money we could have done a better job. But actually, we usually were in pretty good shape money wise. You had to watch your budget but money was normally not an impediment; not while I was in Alaska or for the most part, while I was in Region 3. We often thought that the Regional Director didn’t quite see eye to eye with us. You always had, and I have learned from talking to people since I retired, the political situation has gotten worse. There is a lot more political pressure being brought on the Service. When I first started politicians were; unless you arrested one, or wrote on a ticket, you never met one. There has been a lot of that because the Service has taken on a lot more tasks. It has become a much bigger impediment to development, if you will. Of course, the developers have tried to bring in their politician friends to put the pressure on the Service. There’s been a good deal of that, and sometimes that is or was an impediment. Usually, if you really sit down and figure it out, you could usually get around most of the impediments that were placed in front of you.
MS. NORTON: Who were your supervisors?
MR. HOOD: At the Bird Banding Laboratory, I started with Earl Bassinger. George Junkel was the chief there when I left. When I went with Law Enforcement, Chuck Lawrence was the Chief of Law Enforcement, and the Clark Baven, when I transferred to Alaska. In Alaska Ray Trembly was the SAC when I got there and Jim Hope came when Ray retired. The Regional Directors; I don’t know if I can remember the Regional Directors when I was up there. Gordy Watson, the “hippie RD”. Gordy wore a pig tail and tennis shoes when I knew him in Alaska. He was the first one. Then there was “the dancing bear”, Keith Schriner replaced Gordy. Bob Putx came in. Then, my old friend Bob; strange how I have forgotten his name, I’ll think of it in a minute. Bob was the last RD in Alaska. When I came to Region 3, I was the SAC and Jim Gripman was the RD. No, no, he was not. Harvey Nelson was there for a period of time and then retired. Jim replaced him. When Jim retired, Sam Marler was the RD when I retired.
MS. NORTON: Who were some of the people that you knew outside of the Service? Do you think they’d be able to work for the Service today?
MR. HOOD: I don’t quite know what you mean. People that I knew outside the Service? In looking at the State Wardens and those people that you worked with many of those could, and many of them were interested in becoming Federal Wardens. MS. NORTON: What Presidents, Secretaries of the Interior, or Directors of Fish and Wildlife did you serve under?
MR. HOOD: Lord, I can’t remember! Secretaries of the Interior, oh who was the terrible one that we had under Reagan? Watt, we all remember evil Jim Watt. But that’s the only one I remember. And you remember him in the negative sense. Directors; there was Greenwalt. He was Director of FWS for a period of time. I can’t even remember who was Director when I first started. That was clear back in 1968. There was Greenwalt, and the fellow from Colorado. Some of them you remember by reputation, but you can’t remember their names. And as you get older….
MS. NORTON: Senior moments.
MR. HOOD: Senior moments, that are right! Someone once told me when I first started working with FWS that most Directors of the Service, and in those days the folks that were in the top echelon in the Interior Building that when they retired, within a week no one can call their name. I guess that’s true, I can’t.
MS. NORTON: How do you feel the changes in administrations affected the work that you did?
MR. HOOD: There were some administrations that were slightly greener than others, and provided Interior with a little more money. I think that’s one of the real problems with the Service today. Because the current administration is not very green, that’s for sure. That always created problems because they could short your money very seriously. If you had a bad Secretary of the Interior who was pushing the party line, if the party line was pro-development it created real problems. That was the thing, when I first started it was just almost unheard of; any type of interference by politicians. Ralph Vondane, way back, early on, once made a Senator made and got threatened with being transferred. There was just very little of that going on. Today, I think politicians are meddling a lot more. We had some problems in Alaska because the three politicians from Alaska are not environmentalists in any way, shape of form. They meddled a great deal, and created problems. Not directly so much with Law Enforcement but they certainly made life miserable for the RD if he wasn’t to the pro-development line that they wanted up there.
MS. NORTON: What was the high point of your career?
MR. HOOD: The day I retired! No, there was a lot of things that I enjoyed. I am very proud of my career with the Service. I am very happy with it. The ten years in Alaska were probably the most fun I’ve ever had. Alaska was a very special place. I got to see most of the State. We did lots of flying and small boat work, and big boat work. I worked all over the State and had a lot of exciting things to do up there, both in Law Enforcement and other things we did. It was a great bunch of people. And of course, that was the thing that always made work with the Service a very good experience. It was the people. The work was interesting, but you worked with a great bunch of people; whether it was agents, or refuge people or the biologists. I always felt that that was the absolute strength of the FWS, it’s people. It had top-notch people. That meant people who didn’t worry about starting time or quitting time. Starting time was when we got a project underway. And quitting time was when you were done. I think they were an amazing group and I was always very proud to be associated with the people in the Service.
MS. NORTON: How about a low point? Did you have a low point?
MR. HOOD: Yeah, there were low points. There was always budget battles and things like that. We had some very hard times in Alaska over political interference. Down at the Kenai Refuge when an Agent found Senator Murkowski in a closed area and challenged him on it. There was a great deal of controversy there. That was a very low point because I was Acting Special Agent in Charge at that time. I didn’t get the support we deserved from the Regional Director. That was probably the lowest point of my career. Alaska must have been somewhat trying; when I came out of Alaska and had my first physical after I left, I had high blood pressure. It went down after I got out of Alaska. Maybe that had something to do with it. But the thing about your career with the Service; it was just like life, you remember the happy times and forget the tough ones. I survived retirement. I’m still here, so it must not have been too bad.
MS. NORTON: What was your most humorous experience?
MR. HOOD: Oh boy, there was more of those than hard ones. I always felt that if I had a criticism of the Service, I thought that at times there were people in the Service, and particularly as they went up the line that sometimes took themselves too seriously. And I thought that you ought to have a little more fun. Some people probably thought that I had too much fun. I had a great deal of difficulty taking things real seriously, particularly when it came to bureaucratic things. I can think of one particular one right now, but we always had lot so fun. It was always great to work with agents, because agents were folks that could enjoy themselves no matter where they were or whatever the conditions. It probably would not be political to talk about Christmas parties that I have known, and Christmas parties that I couldn’t remember leaving and things like that!
MS. NORTON: Where do you see the Service heading in the next decade?
MR. HOOD: I have to be real honest. I have sort of lost touch to some extent. With the Service, and many of the agents that I knew and kept in touch with after I retired; they’ve retired too. So I have sort of lost my contacts with the Service. And here in west central Illinois, there’s only a couple of Refuges that I don’t visit as often as I’d like to, I’ve kind of lost touch with the Service. It’s difficult for me to say. From what I read in the conservation magazines that I get; it doesn’t look real great for the Service. I think that because it’s small and certainly with the atmosphere that they are operating under at the present time in 2002, I think the administration now is totaling anti-environmental. They only have interest in big business and what can be made off of the land. I think it’s hard times for the Service. It could get a lot harder. I tend to be somewhat pessimistic and right at the present time both with the economy and the government; I am extremely pessimistic. I would have to say that the Service has a bright future right now. But that could turn around. It’s tough out there today. And the pressure that is on the environment is extreme to say the least. I just got back from Montana. I was out at Red Rocks Lake and while the Red Rock National Wildlife Refuge looks just like it did when I was there 44 years ago, on the country around it houses are growing up like mushrooms, particularly on the Idaho side of the pass there. It’s that way in a lot of places. The pressure is great. It’s too bad because what the Service has to sell is the greatest product in the world. It’s wildlife, and an outdoor experience. I’m not sure that the Service is getting it sold the way it should be.
MS. NORTON: Whom else do you think we should interview?
MR. HOOD: I think that this is a very good project. I think that is one area that the Service has slighted is their retirees, because there is a great wealth of knowledge. The organizational memory is in the retirees. I think that they should all be interviewed; any retiree. I think that they should be interviewed shortly after they retire. In my case it’s been eight years and when you ask about names and things you start to forget them. That’s just something you deal with. And I think that it would be great to interview people just shortly before they retire or just shortly after to get their input. I think that there should be a real effort made; you asked about a humorous experience and everything, it would be great to get people to have more time to tell them in advance that they will be interviewed. It would give them a chance to think of some of the special or humorous things that they did. Someday we’ll all be real old timers and once we’re gone, that’s lost forever. I look back on people that I knew here locally; old farmers and people like that and when they’re gone… Most of them didn’t write anything down. Within the Service of course, there is a written record; case reports and projects that were done. Refuges probably have the best because they have the files in their refuge offices. But it’s still not like doing this. I think this is a great idea. I can’t think of any specific names of people, but any of the people in Refuges, or Law Enforcement. I think an effort should be made to interview Maintenance people, and the Secretaries because they have a totally different perspective on it. But it’s one that is absolutely just as important as a Regional Director. After all, a Secretary out on some Refuge somewhere, if she spent twenty years there, her view of that place, she has a twenty-year memory of that place. It’s just as important, and maybe in some ways, much more interesting than what a Regional Director who was up on top and perhaps couldn’t see what was happening down there on the ground where it was going on.
MS. NORTON: Do you have any photos or documents or anything that you’d want to donate or share to the Archives?
MR. HOOD: Well, all of those files that I took out of there when I left, I don’t want to share those! Oh, I’m only joking! I’ve got a lot of photographs that were taken. They are of Agents and stuff. I could certainly go through and provide negatives of those. I have a lot of photos that Bill Zimmerman took. You know him quiet well don’t you? There are pictures that I took of cases and things like that. We have all of that stuff stacked up. I can show you that in the morning before you leave. A lot of them were pictures that were given to me at my retirement. But there’s a lot of that stuff that I have from Alaska. Along that line; since this is going in to Washington, and somebody will listen to it some day I guess; Jim Hough, who was a SAC in Alaska. I worked with Jim a long time up there. He is definitely someone who should be interviewed. He is quite a photographer. He has a lot of photographs. If nobody has talked to him, he is somebody that should be put on the list. Jim’s memory goes way back. He started his career in Alaska. He left for many years and came back. It was kind of interesting. He started as an Agent in Alaska, left and came back as a Special Agent in Charge. He was quite a photographer. He has lots of stuff. When I left Alaska; I don’t know if they are still up there or not, but there were huge archives, if you will, of slides in the Law Enforcement office. Now, whether or not they are still there, I don’t know. Another person who should be interviewed is Sonny Lecouer who was the Secretary up there when I was there. She has since retired. Maybe someone as gone up there and got them, but those photographs went back into the 1950s. There were people, airplanes, banding, and all of the stuff up there. I went through those slides just to look at them, out of interest sometimes. There again, another person who should be interviewed is Ray Trembly, whose knowledge of the FWS in Alaska goes back to I think 1949 when Ray started. He remembers Alaska when Alaska was real. He’d be someone that should be passed on. Ray has written a couple of books about FWS flying in Alaska. I am sure the Service is making an effort, but those old timers, whether they were Refuge people or Fisheries, Law Enforcement people, or whoever in Alaska, they have a unique story to tell up there.
MS. NORTON: I think that as these tapes are typed up, someone will be reading them before they put them into the Archives. So I think that if there’s anything specific, that they really want, they would probably write to you, or let me know and I would contact you. But that concludes our interview, Larry, and I want to thank you very much. It was good to see you and your wife again, and your beautiful home here. Hopefully, we’ll see you at next year’s meeting, if not before!
MR. HOOD: If not before! I enjoyed it very much!